School of Seven Bells : Disconnect From Desire

<img src="http://www.qromag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/schoolofsevenbellsdiscon.jpg" alt=" " />A<span style="font-style: normal"> good record and can hold up on its own, but big fans of </span><i>Alpinisms</i><span style="font-style: normal"> are certainly going to hope that...
7.0 Vagrant
2010 

School of Seven Bells : Disconnect From Desire) Disconnect From Desire starts out right where Alpinisms (QRO review) left off.  Windstorm lulls you right in with the beautiful harmonies of identical twin sisters Alejandra and Claudia Deheza taking you into a lucid dream state or a hypnotic trance.  Ben Curtis fills your ears with electronic beats and ambient, hovering keyboard soundscapes that would the perfect backdrop for a guided meditation.

School of Seven Bells do not disappoint on their sophomore effort with songs like "ILU" and "Babelonia" bringing back the swirling keyboard loops reminiscent of My Bloody Valentine.  The industrial sounds of machines breathing, familiar train whistle harmonies and big beats are incorporated in songs like "Heart Is Strange" and "Dust Devil".  "Dial" starts out with a whisper and then crashes through the gate with a wall of sound that rivals M83 (QRO live review) and a chorus that forces its way out of the pitch bending loops and warbles.

Where Alpinisms was a bit more experimental, Disconnect From Desire feels a little more conventional, following the pop format laid out by Goldfrapp or even Metric (QRO live review).  Gone are the eccentric vocal melodies and choppy phrasings of "Iamundernodisguise" or "Limb by Limb"; instead the songs on Disconnect often let the lead vocal come out of the mix creating less of a dream pop feel and more like a radio friendly pop song.  Also new to this record are big keyboard leads that could have been played at happy hardcore raves in 1991.  All in all, Disconnect From Desire is a good record and can hold up on its own, but big fans of Alpinisms are certainly going to hope that the next SVIIB record doesn’t go even farther towards the mainstream.

MP3 Stream: "ILU"

{audio}/mp3/files/School of Seven Bells – ILU.mp3{/audio}

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